Gail Griffith, Parent, Author To medicate or not to medicate? If you have a depressed and potentially suicidal teen, that's the $64,000 question. But more than a decade after antidepressant drugs such as Prozac became available, the answers aren't clear. In fact, they're getting murkier all the time, writes Gail Griffith, the mother of a depressed teen, in this week's Outlook section: The Fear of No Right Answer. When the FDA recently issued a public health advisory on antidepressant use in teens, the media sent contradictory messages about its meaning -- one newspaper reported that the FDA was warning of an increased risk of suicide in teens who use antidepressants, while another said exactly the opposite, that the FDA saw no link between suicide risk and antidepressant use. The FDA advisory itself was ambiguous. Griffith's own experience has convinced her that medication is helpful, not harmful, to a teen with depression, but the lack of clarity and consensus in the media and the medical establishment leaves her -- and other parents of possibly suicidal teens -- frustrated and anxious. Falls Church, Va.: About one year ago, my girlfriend was put on the "pill" for birth control. She claims that she has had headaches and migraines from being put on it. Her doctor who prescribed her the pill prescribed her Prozac for her headaches. I was shocked because she told me her doctor said that Prozac was for headaches. After a month of being on it, her mood changed and I noticed some changes in her personality. She then went back to the doctor and complained of these problems and the doctor prescribed her Welbutrin. Why would anti-depressants be prescribed by a doctor (not a psychologist) for headaches and with no diagnosis, merely a guess and check method? Gail Griffith: I am not a clinician or a therapist, but I have to say, I regard it as "wrongheaded" to seek treatment for depression from anyone other than a psychiatrist. I agree with you, it seems odd that her doctor would have prescribed Prozac for headaches and then Wellbutrin for "changes in her personality." I wouldn't go to a Podiatrist for a Pap Smear. I always urge friends to seek out a psychiatrist anytime the possibility of antidepressant medication comes up. I hope this is helpful. © 2003 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4523 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Insurance, Drug Access May Hinge on Answer By Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer The rising number of Americans who are seriously overweight has triggered intense debate among scientists, advocacy groups, federal agencies, insurance companies and drug makers about whether obesity should be declared a "disease," a move that could open up insurance coverage to millions who need treatment for weight problems and could speed the approval of new diet drugs. Proponents argue that new scientific understanding has clearly established that obesity is a discrete medical condition that independently affects health. Officially classifying obesity as a disease would have a profound impact by helping to destigmatize the condition, much as the classification of alcoholism as a disease made it easier for many alcoholics to get treatment, experts say. But equally important, the move would immediately remove key economic and regulatory hurdles to prevention and treatment, they say. Opponents contend that obesity is more akin to high cholesterol or cigarette smoking -- a risk factor that predisposes someone to illness but is not an ailment in itself, such as lung cancer or heart disease. Labeling it a bona fide disease would divert scarce resources, distract public health efforts from the most effective countermeasures and unnecessarily medicalize the condition, they say. (C) 2003 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 4522 - Posted: 11.14.2003

By DAVID BRISCOE HONOLULU -- Bats with a wingspan of up to four feet, boiled in coconut cream and eaten whole, are linked to the exceptionally high rate of a form of Parkinson's disease on Guam, a new scientific study confirms. Scientists have long suspected a link between Guamanians' consumption of the bats known as flying foxes and their high rate of a form of Parkinson's. The study being published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms that the neurotoxic non-protein amino acid BMAA, found in Chamorros with Parkinson's, is contained in the cycad tree, whose seeds the winged mammals eat. Dr. Paul Cox, the director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai and the leader of the study, said analysis shows that the seeds must be eaten by the bats before the neurotoxin transfers to humans. Eating foods made from cycad seeds, including tortillas popular in Guam, would require massive amounts to be dangerous, Cox said. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 4521 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID WASHINGTON -- A new method of slowing the most common inherited nerve disease may point the way for novel treatments for nerve disorders. Researchers working with rats retarded the progression of CMT, which gradually reduces the ability to use the arms and legs and affects about one in 2,500 Americans. The team found success using a chemical that blocks a protein associated with more than half of all cases of CMT. People with the most common form of CMT have a genetic defect that causes overproduction of that protein. Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 4520 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Brain implants could help severely disabled Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer New Orleans -- Less than a month after a widely heralded experiment showed how thought-reading implants can work in monkeys, scientists presented new findings Sunday suggesting such machines could work in people, too. Dr. Miguel A.L. Nicolelis of Duke University said previously unreported human experiments demonstrated success with one type of a so-called brain computer interface, or BCI. He and others discussed their latest findings Sunday at the annual meeting in New Orleans of the Society for Neuroscience, the world's largest gathering of brain researchers. About 28,000 people are attending the weeklong event. ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4519 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW ORLEANS – A new study in rats has found that after severe spinal cord injury, molecules intended to help nerves communicate can attack the tissue surrounding the initial injury and cause further damage. Interestingly, this latent, or secondary, injury develops over days and even weeks after the initial injury. It also appears to cause larger, more debilitating lesions in the spinal cord, said Randy Christensen, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience at Ohio State University. Receiving the initial brunt of the secondary trauma seem to be the neurons, or the cells in gray matter. As time passes, however, tissue in the white matter is also destroyed by secondary damage. Oligodendrocytes, the main cell type in white matter, begin to self-destruct during the secondary injury.

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 4518 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gerry Everding — Advances in neurosurgery have opened the operating room door for an amazing array of highly invasive forms of brain surgery, but doctors and patients still face an incredibly important decision - whether to operate when life-saving surgery could irrevocably damage a patient's ability to speak, read or even comprehend a simple conversation. Improved techniques for the mapping of the brain's language areas using functional magnetic resonance imaging may replace much more invasive pre-surgery mapping techniques, such as electrocortical stimulation (bottom), which requires a patient to be awake and conversant while surgeons probe exposed brain areas in an effort to locate and map language-related functions. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are developing a painless, non-invasive imaging technique that surgeons here already are using to better evaluate brain surgery risks and to more precisely guide operations so that damage to sensitive language areas is avoided.

Keyword: Epilepsy; Brain imaging
Link ID: 4517 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower Emotionally charged events often seem particularly memorable. But this vivid recall may come at a cost. A new study in England suggests that the same biological process that aids recall of emotional experiences also blocks memories of what happened just before those arousing occurrences took place. These memory effects appear to depend on a common neurobiological mechanism, says neuroscientist Bryan A. Strange of University College London. Women suffer larger emotionally instigated memory losses than men do, Strange and his coworkers also have found. Emotion-induced memory gains and losses reflect the activity of stress hormones from the adrenal glands on the amygdala, an inner-brain structure, the scientists assert in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright ©2003 Science Service.

Keyword: Emotions; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4516 - Posted: 06.24.2010

From Adam Ant to Nick Hornby, everyone seems to be opening up about depression. But is the therapy culture actually making us ill? 'If you give it your little finger it will soon have your whole hand,' Sigmund Freud said of psychoanalysis in 1900. He had obviously seen the future. Britain in the twenty-first century means speaking freely and frankly about the state of our minds, about being depressed or being anxious or taking antidepressants. Our conversations are littered with psychobabble. As sociology professor Frank Furedi says in his new book Therapy Culture, we live in a culture that takes emotions very seriously. We admit freely to breakdowns, depression, mania, anxiety, any number of mental illnesses - indeed in some circles it would be seen as very poor form not to do so. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 4515 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Are violence and aggression genetic or a response to our upbringing? As this ScienCentral news video reports, psychologists say it's both–but parenting can shape the effects of childrens' genes. Nurture just might trump nature when it comes to certain aspects of behavioral development. Psychologists who studied rhesus monkeys, which share over 92 percent of their genetic material with us, found that mothers not only took care of their young but also corrected any bad behavior. "Mothers are very good at giving the kind of inputs that change behavior," says J. Dee Higley, a research psychologist at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism , "but that's happening at the very time that the brain is changing, when it needs that kind of input. It's almost as if evolution said, 'let's put mothers there so that the brain gets the right kind of input.'" © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Aggression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4514 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENISE GRADY A hormone that suppresses appetite has been made into a nasal spray which, in a preliminary test in 15 people, safely entered the bloodstream and appeared to reduce hunger pangs. "As the very earliest phase human study, this has proven extremely promising," said Dr. Stephen R. Bloom, a professor of endocrinology at the Imperial College School of Medicine in London, who ran the test. But Dr. Bloom cautioned that the study was a safety test and was not designed to determine whether the hormone could reduce people's appetites or help them lose weight. Longer and larger studies will be needed to assess the spray's safety and effectiveness, he said. The product is still experimental and is not available to the public. It will probably not be approved or marketed for years. Its maker, Nastech, a small company based in Bothell, Wash., has not yet applied to the Food and Drug Administration. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 4513 - Posted: 11.13.2003

NEW ORLEANS, - New studies find much to recommend in pregnancy and motherhood. Findings include that: pregnancy produces heightened smell sensitivity; suckling one’s young puts brain reward systems into high gear; lactation increases the rate of wound healing; and motherhood protects against stress. Morning sickness, food cravings, and food aversions are not the only side effects of pregnancy. Many women also say that they perceived changes in their chemical senses during pregnancy; perhaps a certain dish had a different flavor than they were used to or they were especially sensitive to an odor in their environment. Indeed, a new study finds that almost 70 percent of 126 pregnant women questioned claimed to have abnormal smell sensitivity early in pregnancy. A majority of these women also reported that they perceived some odors to be stronger than normal, says Daniel Broman, a PhD student at Umea University in Umea, Sweden. Broman and his colleagues found that, for example, the smells of cooking odors, cigarette smoke, perfume, and coffee were reported to be experienced as stronger among more than 30 percent early in pregnancy. Furthermore, almost 60 percent reported food aversions early in pregnancy and, interestingly, about 70 percent of those who reported abnormal smell sensitivity early in pregnancy also reported food aversions. Copyright © 2003 Society for Neuroscience

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4512 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New Orleans, -- Investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that stimulating the brain's subthalamic nucleus (STN) to control motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease has an unintended consequence: It interferes with cognitive function. When given cognitive tests, patients performed better when their stimulators were turned off than when they were turned on. The team will present its findings at 4 p.m. CT on Wed., Nov. 12, at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. "It's clear that stimulation can provide a great deal of benefit to patients with Parkinson's disease," says principal investigator Tamara Hershey, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. "But when we looked at cognitive function, patients did better when their stimulators were turned off, although these effects were subtle."

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 4511 - Posted: 11.13.2003

Dyscalculia appears to cloud number images. HELEN PEARSON Scientists have homed in on a brain region that leaves some people struggling with mathematics. Their research might point up better ways to teach numbers1. The study looked at people with dyscalculia - the mathematical equivalent of dyslexia. Up to 6% of children are thought to suffer from the condition; they toil with times tables and can find it tough to add small numbers even as adults. Dyscalculics have abnormal pulses of activity in a brain furrow called the right intraparietal sulcus, find Nicolas Molko of INSERM, the French Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris, and his colleagues. The fissure helps the mind to conjure spatial images. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 4510 - Posted: 06.24.2010

TB drug plus virtual reality relieves fear of heights. HELEN R. PILCHER A common antibacterial drug has helped phobics to overcome their fear of heights. Combined with standard behavioural therapy, D-cycloserine (DCS) speeded recovery fourfold compared with therapy alone. An estimated 19 million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders, including phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. "The same treatment may also help these people," says Michael Davis of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who helped to conduct the study. Behavioural therapy - where sufferers are gradually exposed to their fear in an attempt to modify their response to it - can be expensive and time consuming. In the United States, four months of weekly sessions cost around $3,000. Hastening recovery lowers the cost of treatment, Davis told the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, this week. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 4509 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Oxytocin may help humans bond. HELEN R. PILCHER Trust begets trust - and the hormone oxytocin, research reveals. The chemical messenger may help humans to bond, researchers told this week's Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. People's oxytocin levels rise when they receive a signal of trust, says Paul Zak from Claremont Graduate University in California. Those with the highest hormone levels are more likely to be generous in return and so are more trusting, he says. Zak's team gave 19 people $10 apiece. Each person was invited to share their reward with an anonymous recipient. The recipients' money was then tripled and they were allowed to send a share back to the donors. The researchers found that 54% of recipients returned money to donors. Those who gave and returned most generously had the highest oxytocin levels. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 4508 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists say they have discovered what happens in the brain when someone falls in love. They studied chemical reactions in men and women who were all in the early stages of relationships. Research, published by the Society for Neuroscience, found activity in areas of the brain which are linked to energy and elation. But scans found women's brains showed emotional responses, while men's showed activity linked to sexual arousal. Researchers took functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of the brains of 17 young men and women to see what was happening in the brain of someone in love. They were alternately shown a photo of someone they loved and one of someone they knew, but were emotionally neutral towards. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Brain imaging
Link ID: 4507 - Posted: 11.13.2003

By Erik Strand Scientists have discovered that a metabolite of nicotine may help improve memory and protect brain cells against dementia. Known as cotinine, the drug has neither the addictive properties nor the harmful side effects of nicotine, yet may still be potent enough for therapeutic use, say researchers at the Medical College of Georgia. Pharmacologist Jerry Buccafusco and his team noticed that while nicotine is known to enhance memory and cognition, the effects last long after nicotine has disappeared from the body. They began to suspect a longer acting substance. "Cotinine lasts 10 times longer in the blood [than nicotine]. We decided to study cotinine as a pharmacological drug in its own right," says Buccafusco. In the first of three experiments, researchers found that rhesus monkeys that had received cotinine performed better on tests of memory than did those who did not receive the drug. © Copyright 1991-2003 Sussex Publishers

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4506 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Research Project Is Designed to Help NFL Gain Insight on Widespread Injury By Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post Staff Writer OTTAWA -- The scene plays out on TV screens every Sunday. The quarterback throws a pass, the wide receiver turns to catch it, and then, in a timed move as subtle as a battering ram, the safety slams into the side of the pass-catcher's head. Maybe the receiver holds the ball; maybe not. Maybe he gets up; maybe not. "Actually, it takes about 15 milliseconds," said biomechanical engineer Christopher Withnall, winding the blurred videotape back and forth, frame-by-frame, the receiver's head rebounding like a billiard ball again and again. "We can see the moment right before the hit and the moment right after, but not the exact moment. The injury occurs in the blink of an eye." Withnall researches concussions for the NFL as part of a $2 million project that is the most ambitious study of its kind ever undertaken. For a league in which several high-profile players in recent years have missed games because of head injuries or in some cases have been forced to retire, the study has given researchers unprecedented information on how and why concussions occur. It also should provide insights into how to prevent and treat them, and how to lessen their lingering after-effects. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 4505 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Robert Sapolsky and Paul Ehrlich DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 11 | November 2003 In Darwin, Minnesota, the modern pilgrim can observe what is claimed to be the world’s largest ball of twine made by one person. Eleven feet tall, weighing in at 17,400 pounds, the ball is displayed in a Plexiglas gazebo. The callow sophisticate, passing afternoons in Paris museums amid roomfuls of Ming vases or dinosaur pelvises, might guess that a ball of twine, however large, could have only limited public appeal. But the town of Darwin knows better, making the display the centerpiece of its annual Twine Ball Days festival. This sort of thing is not an anomaly. Consider the display in Branson, Missouri, of the world’s largest twine ball produced by group effort, a whopping 41.5 feet in circumference. In Jackson, Wyoming, you can find the world’s largest ball of barbed wire, all 5,290 pounds of it. Why should anyone in his right mind want to see these things? Why are cheesy performers advertised as “the one and only” ? Why is a one-in-a-million postage stamp with an airplane accidentally printed upside down worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? And why is it impossible to resist looking at a picture in the Guinness Book of World Records of the world’s longest mustache? It’s not because it makes us reflect on the folly that is human. It’s not the challenge—“That’s it; I’m going to stop shaving today.” Why are we attracted not only to the biggest version of almost anything but also to the smallest, the weirdest, the first, the last, or the only? Why does something gain value merely because it is rare and authentic—the odd voyeuristic pleasure that comes from seeing on display the salt and pepper shakers from the mess kit George Washington may have clutched as he crossed the Delaware? Is it mere curiosity, or is it something more? © 2003 The Walt Disney Company.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 4504 - Posted: 06.24.2010